Hay, a major crop for feeding livestock, is cut in the field, dried by the natural elements to a moisture content below 18%, and then packaged in bales by implements that pick up the hay and form the bale. One type of hay baler that has become the most popular type of implement in the last twenty years is the round baler. This implement uses tines rotating on a shaft to pick up the hay from the field and deliver it to a chamber. In the chamber, the hay is rotated by moving belts, chains or rollers, so that is wrapped in a tight cylinder of increasing size as hay is delivered to the chamber. At the time the chamber becomes full, the bale of hay is tied by a means built into the baler and then discharged.
To prevent spoilage due to mold growth, the hay must be harvested at moisture contents below 18%. Since an individual field of hay will vary in moisture from location to location and over time, an increasingly popular method for monitoring moisture in the bale, is to mount a moisture sensing device on one side of the baler and conveying a reading to the operator of the baler on a continuous basis as the hay is passing over this sensor. The devices in common use are sensors constructed of non-conductive material with two electrodes isolated from the baler frame and from each other. Electrical conductivity between the two electrodes in the sensor is a function of moisture content, as the hay conducts more electricity as the moisture content increases. Electrical conductivity, however is also affected by other factors such as pressure exerted against the sensor by the bale.
Since these conventional sensors are mounted on one side of then baler, they do not provide for a sample of the entire bale. If moisture on one side is not representative of the entire bale, the moisture reading coming from the conventional pad will be misleading. The sensing device that has been invented senses across the entire width of the bale and therefore provides improved moisture readings over the conventional sensor.